How, in the heck, do I start?
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Common Core Standard 1
Doug Fisher/Tim Shannahan
Sunday Cummins
Megan Panje District PD
• Close Reading is an outcome, not a technique or a strategy I
In fact: use it anytime with any text to develop Metacognitive
strategies so kids can read like this independently!
• AKA Deep Reading, Critical Reading, Analytical Reading
Progression of
Text-dependent Questions
Whole
Across texts
Opinions, Arguments,
Intertextual Connections
8&9
Inferences
3&7
Author’s Purpose
6
Entire text
Segments
Vocab & Text Structure
Paragraph
Key Details
Sentence
Word
Part
Standards
General Understandings
4&5
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1
Sunday Cummins: Big Ideas that students need a process to
support them, including Anchor Charts, predictable Annotations and
basic questions that lead to INDEPENDENT close reading of complex
texts. Her giant emphasis is on synthesis of the author’s big ideas.
model is quite detailed, and gives many examples of
text-dependent questions in all 9 CCSS strands. This might be a great
resource for you if you like a little more hand holding.
recommends a simplified model and has a lot of
critical questions on his blog about the assumptions people make
about close reading in general You might like this if you enjoy hearing
a range of ideas and someone who pushes the envelope
Lehmans Falling in Love: Many teachers at HO are studying him!
Great opportunity to have a common language with other teachers!
A simple way to look at it
1. For a first reading, you want to ask questions that ensure that
the students understand and think about the major ideas in the
story or article. That means you limit your questions to big ideas
or you query information that you think the students might be
confused by.
2. On the second reading, you want to ask questions that
require students to analyze how the text works: why the author
made certain choices and what the implications of those
decisions would be in terms of meaning or tone.
3. On the third reading, the issue is how does this text connect
to your life and your views, critical analysis of quality and value,
and how the text connects to other texts. (Shanahan)
Things to consider about
Text dependent questions
• Close reading requires close attention to the ideas expressed
and implied by the author and to the author’s craft
• “Low-level” questions are little more than memory tasks—
they ask readers to remember what the author has said
explicitly
• “High-level questions” ask for answers that require logic,
inference, and/or analysis of the text information
• Past research indicates that a mix of low and high question
levels leads to better comprehension
Which of the following questions require
students to read the text closely?
1. If you were present at the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, what would
you do?
2. What are the reasons listed in the preamble
for supporting their argument to separate
from Great Britain?
1. If you were present at the
signing of the Declaration of
Independence, what would
you do?
2. What are the reasons listed
in the preamble for
supporting their argument
to separate from Great
Britain?
(Fisher and Frey)
Non-Examples and Examples
Not Text-Dependent
• Do you like butterflies? Why or
why not?
• What do you know about
healthy and unhealthy foods?
• Eric Carle lists foods that give
the caterpillar a stomachache.
What is one food that gives you
a stomachache?
Text-Dependent
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How long did it take to go
from a hatched egg to a
butterfly?
The title of the book is The
Very Hungry Caterpillar. How
do we know he is hungry?
What foods gave the
caterpillar a stomachache?
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FIRST: What does the text say?
• Overall view
• Sequence of
information
• Story arc
• Main claim and
evidence
• Gist of passage
Follow up with Retelling/Summary
Key Details
• Search for nuances in meaning
• Determine importance of ideas
• Find supporting details that support main
ideas
• Answers who, what, when, where, why,
how much, or how many.
SECOND:
How does the text work?
• Questions should help guide students to think about how the
text works and what the author was up to (craft and structure)
• What did you think about how the author used literary
devices? How effective were these?
• Awareness of author choices are critical to coming to terms
with craft and structure
Vocabulary and Text Structure
• Bridges literal and inferential
meanings
• Denotation
• Connotation
• Shades of meaning
• Figurative language
• How organization contributes to
meaning
Inferences
argument in persuasive text,
each idea in informational text, each key
detail in literary text, and observe how these
build to a whole.
Probe each
THIRD What does the text
mean?
• Questions should help guide students to think about what this
text means to them and how it connects to other
texts/stories/events/films
• Stories relate to other stories and to our lives
• Evaluations of quality (placing a text on a continuum based on
quality standards) and connecting to other experiences is an
essential part of the reading experience
Author’s Purpose
• Genre: Entertain? Explain? Inform?
Persuade?
• Point of view: First-person, third-person
limited, omniscient, unreliable narrator
• Critical Literacy: Whose story is not
represented?
Evaluation & Synthesis
• Do you know other stories like this? How were those stories
similar and different?
• Which of these stories did you like best? Why?
• What did the story mean to you? What does it say about how
you should live your life?
Students use Evidence Based Terms
Sample Text-Dependent
Question Stems
A Sample Close Reading Template
Develop Text-dependent
Questions for Your Books
Do the questions require the reader to return to
the text?
Do the questions require the reader to use
evidence to support his or her ideas or claims?
Do the questions move from text-explicit to
text-implicit knowledge?
Are there questions that require the reader to
analyze, evaluate, and create?
How can I remember all this???
• Everything from BC is on the website
• Join the Falling in Love with Close Reading
book club!
• Come to the next BC in which we will watch
some people in action and develop the
questions for a passage together!
FIRST : What does the text say?
• Questions should help guide students to think
about the most important elements of the text
(the key ideas and details)
• Stories are about significant, meaningful conflicts
(between man and nature, with others, and with
oneself)
• Human nature and human motivation are central
to the action and the meaning
• Questions should also clarify confusions (in this
case, confusions about what the text says)
The fallacy of having “rules” for Close
Reading
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Never preteach vocabulary or concepts
Always ask text dependent questions are always RIGHT
Annotations must be made by students
Read each paragraph for 50 minutes or 5 times
Students have to read by themselves the first time
Questions should all be higher order thinking
• The ONLY RULE is you know your students and you know the text
and what you want students to have experiences with getting a
deep understanding of a text so they can eventually read closely on
their own. TRUST YOURSELF!
That bears repeating:
The ONLY RULE is you know your students and
you know the text and what you want students
to have experiences with getting a deep
understanding of a text so eventually they can
read a text closely on their own. TRUST
YOURSELF!